Helen Wilson: 'Scaring the Rabbits Away - Canberra gardens around 1938'

The flies and the sheep were still here in 1938 but no longer were the rabbits, according to advice from 'the government’.  In the 1930s, Canberra residents, arriving mainly from Melbourne, tried to recreate the environments left behind in their new temporary camps and settlements and quarter acre and larger blocks north and south of the Molonglo Rover. It was the time of the Depression and Canberra was struggling to emerge as the national capital.  Helen will tell stories of individual families’ experiences and describe how the growing community helped each other as its members confronted the effects of the climate and clay soils at a time when the trees in the public spaces were showing form in places where sheep had grazed for a century.

In addition to being a member of the ACT Australian Garden History Society Branch Committee, Helen Wilson is a volunteer English language tutor and is involved in maintaining an ACT heritage precinct.  Her meagre gardening skills were learnt from her Dad whose childhood family farm kept them well fed through the years of the Depression.  Helen’s botanical skills are emerging very slowly.